Apologia for Bishop Jocelin

Abstract

Jocelin was a monk of Melrose Abbey who became prior of the house and in 1170 abbot. In 1174 he was elected bishop of Glasgow and died in 1199. This account of his life, in the form of a letter by Ralph, abbot of Melrose (1194–1202), is at first sight a strange document. The recital of any factual matter is preceded by a lengthy preamble on the theme that the works of nature and the constructs of men all move towards destruction because of the corruption inherent in them, but human fortunes in particular are subject to swift reversal and the higher the standing of an individual the more complete and devastating his fall. The whole document displays a deliberately affected style, but this earlier section in particular is written in a highly artificial and elaborated Latin, of which the English translation endeavours to give some impression. The length of this disquisition seems out of proportion to the rest of the document, and it is difficult to see its immediate relevance. It is an overblown way of merely saying that the once powerful Bishop of Glasgow is now dead. This preamble should perhaps be seen as something more than an exercise in rhetoric elaborating a common topos. It is so powerfully expressed and so full of emotion that one feels that it must have more significance than that and there are some unobtrusive clues suggesting another interpretation. The writer draws his introduction to an end by remarking that when a great man dies his enemies seize the chance to denigrate him and ‘at our dissolution the deliberate cunning of the public enemy has its triumph’ (p. 138). This hint of the existence of malicious comment reappears at the end, where we are told that ‘if events such as these had come to common knowledge in the case of a man of old in days long past, they would clearly shut the mouths of detractors and remove all material for malice’ (p. 143), implying that